21 Reviews

This place is the best for cheap vegan desserts like doughnuts, slices, and tarts. I loved the lemon tart and the hot jam doughnut and I could have eaten about 10 of the little baked doughnuts. The sausage roll I tried was good too and I can't wait to come back for more next time I'm in Melbourne.

Re-live all you childhood bakery memories! Can't believe how cheap the prices are, nor how on point the fare. We tried all the pies which I recommend as well as a healthy sampling of the sweets. Everything was incredible with clear vegan labels. We stuffed ourselves senseless for $30

The vegan options are labelled and so cheap! We decided to make the journey worth the short trip and stock up on some treats (donuts and a slice) as well as buying a mushroom pie. The service was polite and they were busy. The treats tasted very fresh. They had lots of vegan options, sweet and savoury ones too. Can't wait to try more things!

If you miss such terrible treats as jam donuts, chocolate-iced jam donuts, pies and sausage rolls - this is *THE* place to go in Melbourne. Compared to other veg*n specialty shops, it is also relatively inexpensive. La Panella have recently opened a Bánh Mì section (mock-meats included), so this is literally Vietnamese vegan heaven in a bun.

Good food at a very good price. Hard to get out of here spending less than $40, but that $40 will get you a few loaves of bread, half a dozen pasties, half a dozen sausage rolls, a couple of pies and a couple of long jam & cream doughnuts.
A lot of the items are Vegan and clearly marked.
La Panella have also recently installed a sandwich bar in the shop as well as a coffee machine.

Small bakery which has the unlikeliest of vegan pies and pastries! I was so excited to find this place so close to home and it offered something I'm always craving for, Pies and tarts!!! What a gem! And cheap too.

La Panella is a great little bakery with many options for sweet and savory food. Everything is vegetarian and almost all of the items are vegan. The jam doughnuts are excellent and so are the almond chocolate slices. Savory options include pies and meat-free sausage rolls. Take plastic tupperware and buy in bulk!

This place seems like it's out in the middle of nowhere (I'm not from Melbourne, so forgive me if I'm wrong), but I always manage to make it out here when I'm in town.
A good range of sweet baked goods, as well as hot pies, pasties, sausage rolls, etc.

Pros: Amazingly cheap, tasty, unhealthy goodness, did I say how cheap it is?

90% of the time I'm one of those punishing, self-righteous vegans who eats a wholefoods-based diet but sometimes I just need the comfort of a fake meat pie from La Panella. It takes me back to the school playground where, actually, we didn't have a canteen but a "lunch order" system where you put your money in a milk crate in the morning and the milk crate got returned at lunch time from the local roadhouse* loaded with paper bags filled with dreams.

My standard lunch order was a meat pie and a jam donut and La Panella can fix me up with a convincing vegan substitute. Plus I usually grab a few cold to stash in the freezer coz it's a long way from Brunswick to Preston but now that I live with my BF and it's on his way home from work, I might be in trouble.

La Panella has been around since I was living in Reservoir and started eating a vegan diet more than 10 years ago, I reckon. Comforting to see then still doing good business. They seem to be nice peeps, worth supporting.

*petrol station that sells takeaway food and a few essentials - ya with me?

Yeah, it's a pie and pastry shop. It's not healthy, it's not high cuisine. But it's _really_ cheap and it has many vegan and vegetarian options. And it's really tasty.

The plain pie, mushroom pie, curry pie, pasty and sausage roll are all vegan, and are $2-3 which is competitive with 'real' pie shops. Around half the donuts, 'hedgehogs', slices, pies and tarts are vegan. Everything is clearly signed as 'vegan' - everything else is vegetarian. Also has cheap vegan bread - regular sliced white, wholemeal etc loaves and round and special loaves.

I recommend a mushroom pie and a jam donut, maybe with a vegan custard tart chaser. That should set you back less than $5.

Pros: Cheap as you can get., Traditional 'Aussie' food, vegan!, Really tasty if you like that stuff

I'm lucky enough to be working within walking distance of this place. Have had many, many of their "sausage" rolls and "meat" pies. The pies in particular, while not exactly gourmet, are really something and you could pass them off as actual meat pies I'd say. There's also a lot of vegan doughnuts and pastries, although I haven't ever tried them. I sometimes wonder how long some of stuff has been sitting there, but they appear to turn over a lot of pies/sausage rolls. Good to buy the pies and sausage rolls cold and then pop them in the oven when you have friends over for the footy.

I have been buying the pies and sausage rolls from this bakery for years. I drive across town to stock up on them cold, pop them in foil in the freezer and then into the oven when I feel like it.

You know how mad Melbournians are about sport? Well, nothing goes with sport like a pie apparently. So this little vegan pops one of these pies in the oven and it's all good and no-one is wondering what kinda wierdo food you are eating, because it looks like meat! So you can enjoy it quietly if you wish.

Joking aside, they also do good donuts. You know how exciting it is for a vegan to get a good donut? Yeah,last time they even had donuts with vegan cream and jam...hmmm.

Another good hint: Jam tarts - if you are wanting to stock up are vegan, of course. I pop these in an airtight container in the freezer. Take them out 1/2 a day before you want to eat them. Perfect.

They do have some vegetarian foods as well as vegan, but they are all clearly labelled.

What a fantastic place! Vegan meat pies, sausage rolls and pasties. All are tasty and pretty convincing substitutes for the real thing.

Their baked treats are also awesome. Cinnamon donuts, iced donuts, Boston rolls, cream buns and custard slices are all vegan. The only one I wasn't a huge fan off was the cream bun, which used a hard and fairly tasteless cream substitute. Everything else tasted great though. Note that some of the baked goods contain dairy (lamingtons for example), but all the vegan options are clearly labelled.

It's also very cheap. Last time I went, I bought two meat pies, a sausage roll, 3 mini donuts and a loaf of bread for around $9. It's not fancy, and is basically just your standard neighbourhood bakery.

I've eaten there a few times and never had an issue with the uncooked pastry mentioned in the previous review, so maybe they've picked up their game.

On a side note, it's worth a wander down High St to check out all the Asian supermarkets. Head south from La Panella - there are 3 or 4 within about 100m. There are some really good imported veggie / vegan products to be found.

Sometimes the hot pastries are not heated all the way through. If you buy a hot pastry which is not heated all the way through, is cold in the middle, please complain. You don't need to be angry or want a refund or anything. You can have a smile and say that you thought they would like to know their hot food was cold on the inside. This is the only way they will change their practices and make sure the pastries are heated all the way through (I think they microwave them first and then the oven maintains the heat so if they are not microwaved properly then there can be problems).

Apart from that, the pastries, comprised of two types of pies, a pastie, and a sausage roll, are an excellent and very cheap snack/small meal if you are in the area (and they are usually hot all the way through (but not always)).

Pies are currently $2, pasties $1.80, and sausage rolls $1.50. You can't beat that anywhere in Melbourne.

I also see people buying them in bulk to take away and heat at home.

The main business of the bakery is the wide range of vegetarian / vegan bakery options available

They make yummy vegan cinnamon donuts and pies and pasties with assorted vegan fillings. The breads and rolls are mainly all vega, the service has always been super-friendly and helpful when stuck on what to buy, I highly recommend this bakery when craving cinnamon donuts!!